Wednesday, April 29, 2015

A Good Man Goes to War

Dear Gary—
A Good Man Goes to War is a lot of sound and fury. In other words, it is New Who doing what it does best. There is no solid purpose for anything that happens except that it makes for an impressive display.
Take the Doctor’s ‘army’ for example. It sure is cool to see the array of allies he amasses; some old friends and some old enemies and some heretofore unknown entities. He has Danny Boy (Victory of the Daleks) in a spitfire for some random reason, and he has Captain Avery and his son (The Curse of the Black Spot) for even more inexplicable objectives. I’m not sure what help a seventeenth century pirate and a dying lad will be in a space battle; this seems especially gratuitous, not to mention irresponsible. But I imagine the Doctor thinking to himself, ‘the boy is dying anyway (even though I could very well get him proper medical attention but don’t have the time or inclination) so why not let him go down in a blaze of my glory?’ He also has a host of Judoon and Silurians (again I don’t know when they decided to emerge from their perpetual slumber), who just a few short serials ago were allied against him when the Pandorica opened.
Finally he has a trio of characters we have never met before but who apparently are long acquainted with the Doctor: the Silurian Madame Vastra, the Human Jenny Flint, and the Sontaran Strax. Each is a fascinating personality with back stories untold but who fit comfortably in as if they have long belonged to the Doctor Who canon. That is the brash trick of New Who in general and this episode in particular—to present characters with no explanation as to their origin or motivation as though they are totally natural and justified.
Such is the case with the villains of the piece. Madame Kovarian, aka Eye Patch Lady, the Clerics, and the Order of the Headless Monks have no cause to go to the extreme lengths that they do. They are out to kill the Doctor; they have the Doctor in their grasp; so shoot him already. But of course they do not. They prefer to kidnap Amy’s and Rory’s baby to indoctrinate her and groom her to do their dirty work sometime in the future. A sure fire plan if I ever heard one. This is an organization with the sole purpose, not to kill the Doctor as we are led to believe, but to come up with the most elaborate schemes possible to accomplish simple tasks.
Even the title signifies nothing. There is no war per se. There are two armies, true, but very little battle. Perhaps a skirmish or two. It is as if the Doctor pulled this all together just to prove that he could do it—assemble an odd lot to defy his enemies. If any mission cried out for the delicacy of infiltration, however, this would be it. The Doctor even goes so far as to impersonate a monk. He probably would have succeeded in retrieving the Baby Pond if he had kept to this disguise rather than put on his act of bravado. As for the Kovarian faction, they too have their show of strength simply for the fun of it; their real tactic is deception and unlike the Doctor they pull it off beautifully.
As for the ‘good man,’ this is obviously referring to the Doctor but it is an ambiguous designation. Why exactly is there an “endless, bitter war” directed solely against the Doctor? Why are so many races of the universe bent on the Doctor’s destruction? “You make them so afraid,” River tells the Doctor. He has become “the man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name.” This is not the reputation of a kind and noble savior. “To the people of the Gamma Forests,” River continues, “the word Doctor means mighty warrior.” To demonstrate, the episode starts with the Doctor blowing an entire Cyber battle fleet out of the sky with no provocation, simply to get an answer to a question.
Soldiers in the war against the Doctor can’t even make up their minds on the good/bad thing. They hold him in almost worshipful awe. Then there is Lorna Bucket who joins the Clerics on the chance that she can meet up with her hero once more. For a man who has gone to great lengths in the past to wipe any trace of his existence from history, he certainly courts both the fear and adoration of the universe these days. I have to say, Gary, that it is getting rather tiresome, this game of tainted idol.
However, this puffed up drama triumphs in its spectacle. Why does Rory dress like a Roman Centurion? No reason other than the Doctor’s whim. It is a wonderful visual that makes Rory ridiculous and heroic in one go, and that is what Doctor Who is all about these days; no real substance, only glistering rapid strikes packing emotional punches. Like the Doctor’s stirring “Colonel Run Away” speech that at the end of the day is meaningless since the Kovarian gang don’t have any intention of making a stand.
I do wonder why the Monks return at the end. Kovarian already has the child so what is the point? They come back just to be slaughtered, which is unbelievable by the way. Perhaps Kovarian didn’t let the Monks in on her plan and sent them to their deaths, but again, it is highly unlikely that these most feared and awful foes go down with barely a fight. Oh, they do their script duty by providing the tear-jerking deaths of Lorna and Strax, but none of the Doctor Who regulars are even scratched and somehow they manage to kill every last one of these powerful beings.
“So they took her anyway,” Amy says when Flesh Baby Pond is disintegrated. “All this was for nothing.”
Not for nothing, Amy. Because ultimately A Good Man Goes to War is a hymn; A Good Man Goes to War is a song of River. “The only water in the forest is the river,” and all rivers lead to one Pond. Melody Pond; River Song.
Baby Pond is only Flesh, and that is appropriate because we feel no attachment to the fake child. We never experienced Amy’s pregnancy; we never saw Amy and Rory as doting parents-to-be. The vacillating pregnancy test was a device to raise eyebrows and whip up fan frenzy. There was no maternal or paternal empathy established. Therefore, when we are presented with a newborn there is no more feeling for it other than the normal reaction to a cute and cuddly baby. Karen Gillan does her emotive best to depict a grieving mother, but that punch doesn’t hold the same wallop as it would have if we had been invested in nine months worth of morning sickness and name picking and clothes shopping along with the prospective parents. It is offered up as a fait accompli and we have to fill in the emotional blanks.
Baby Pond is unimportant. She is a symbol nothing more.
Alex Kingston as River Song, however, is everything. She alone (the actress and the character) gives A Good Man Goes to War substance. The whole dreary season arc has been flowing steadily towards her and at last it is justified.
From the moment Alex Kingston appears she lights up the screen. I have had some minor problems with River’s character in the past, but in this episode she is perfectly played throughout. She is charming in her old fashioned skating rig, and the joy she feels as she describes her birthday outing with the Doctor is palpable. Her mood suddenly shifts as she talks with Centurion Rory and she realizes that the day has come for the Doctor (not to mention Amy and Rory) to discover her true identity. She is subtle and inscrutable as she processes the information and informs Rory that she cannot join him in battle.
When she finally does arrive at Demon’s Run she is again radiant. This is truly her shining moment. The slow reveal is wonderfully done for the greatest effect, and here I also have to give high praise to Matt Smith. He ranges from anger to incredulity to joy in seamless transition as he takes in what River is showing him. (And as long as I am handing out applause—kudos to the props department for both the cot and the prayer leaf.) But it is River who steals the scene from start to last.
“I’m Melody. I’m your daughter.”
Melody Pond. River Song. It all makes sense. This is the payoff for the first half of the season. I won’t say that it makes the first half of the season worthwhile, but it at least puts a small glimmer of luster on it.
There is still an entire half of a season left, though, and now we are going to have the long and drawn out process of the Doctor trying to find the baby; and let’s not forget the whole death by astronaut story line.  (Then again, please, could we forget it?)
At this point I want to revisit my comment about life not being fun for Amy and Rory anymore. Are they really going to continue tagging along after the Doctor now that they have been robbed of their parenting experience? But like I said, Baby Pond was never anything more than Flesh to begin with; her loss was for immediate impact only and I’m sure won’t leave any long term emotional scars.
And I am reluctantly coming to the opinion, Gary, that New Who is nothing but Flesh. However, even fake Doctor Who is better than no Doctor Who.

Friday, April 24, 2015

The Almost People

Dear Gary—
“Being almost the Doctor’s like being no Doctor at all.”
But having two Doctors, even if one is only almost a Doctor, is pretty great. It had been a fantastic cliffhanger from the previous story, and it makes the present one, The Almost People, worthwhile. It makes all of the dark corridors and shoddy CGI villains worthwhile. And speaking of worthwhile, the cliffhanger ending of this episode almost makes the stringing along of the season’s arc worthwhile. Almost.
Let’s get the almost people out of the way first, though. Similar to its first half, The Almost People flirts with some interesting moral questions but sacrifices them for the more expedient thriller devices. Thus we have Rory taking a compassionate interest in Ganger Jennifer only to have Ganger Jennifer turn into a laughable monster to rival that of The Lazarus Experiment. And we have the pitiable pile of discarded Flesh only to be followed up by a baffling wall full of eyes. (“Why are they there?” “To accuse us.” OK—but how did they get there? Through the mighty pen of the author.)
To pull it all together, we have Rory agreeing to help Ganger Jennifer on a mission of mercy to save all of the unfortunate Flesh of the world only to have Ganger Jennifer trick him into betraying his friends and placing them all in typical horror film danger, complete with monsters and chases and barricaded rooms and impending deluges of nasty stuff into sealed off chambers and imminent explosions. Standard fare. As standard fare, however, it is exciting enough to keep one’s attention.
To round it all out, we have a remarkably level headed and somewhat resigned and pacifist Cleaves (stark contrast to her demeanor from Part 1), both Flesh and Human; we have an adorable little boy to inject heart into the proceedings (even if too sappy for words); and we have Gangers and Humans questioning their identities and their actions.
And through it all we have Matt Smith giving a terrific performance as the two Doctors. His (their) gambit of switching identities is entertaining and clever, although I do wonder why the Gangers assume that the Doctor they come across is Flesh; they really would have no way of divining that, and as it happens they are wrong.
In sum, a decent adventure. However, lest we forget, this adventure is in service to the season-long arc. It is therefore wrapped up most hurriedly in neat and tidy fashion. By the end we have exactly one version of each personality (except the unfortunate Jennifer who at one time had three simultaneous copies). It really doesn’t matter which is Flesh and which is Human; they are all one and the same. Or so the story would have us believe. I can’t quite buy it and I feel sorry for that little boy who is gaining an imposter for a dad; or maybe it is the fraudulent Jimmy I really pity. And I can’t help wondering how the Doctor can guarantee that the Flesh substitutes will not deteriorate or degenerate or derail.
This rush to conclude throws out the Cleaves and Doctor Gangers for no good reason other than to tie up the duplicate loose ends. Everyone else is safe aboard the TARDIS; why can’t Ganger Cleaves and Ganger Doctor also hop in and leave CGI Jennifer to be blasted to atoms? They could at least make a try for it and if they don’t make it, well, they’re dead anyway. But the more practical solution is for the real Doctor (and real Cleaves if she really wants to be the last standing) to operate the magic sonic screwdriver defense since they are immune to its effects. The magic sonic would take care of the CGI Jen and the two could then make a dash for the TARDIS before the place is blown sky high. But that leaves stray Gangers that the plot doesn’t want to account for.
The one Ganger that the plot does want to deal with, and the one that this entire story was created to accommodate, is Ganger Amy. This is a shocking revelation that finally puts some teeth and meaning into the eye patch lady and vacillating pregnancy test that we have been subjected to all season long. Finally we are getting to the heart of the arc. Of course, being only mid-season we know that there is still the long and torturous tail trailing along behind, leading, one can only hope, to the pot of gold at the end. But for now at least we are getting some answers.
Real Amy is pregnant, but real Amy has not been on the TARDIS for quite some time. Ganger Amy has been on board since the beginning of the season. She doesn’t know she is Ganger Amy because she hasn’t met with the freak accident of a solar storm combined with the stupidity of Cleaves to give her independence from her original. (Which sort of renders meaningless the moral dilemma concerning the remaining Flesh that is being utilized throughout the world; neither is it sentient.)  Except, wait a minute, she was on that island the same as the rest of the Flesh when the storm hit. Either she is a different version of Flesh that would not be affected or she is not affected because her original is not also on the island or some other explanation that I'm sure the author could come up with if pressed.
The Doctor’s disintegration of Ganger Amy is ruthless but necessary. I’m not entirely sure, though, why he needed to study the Flesh. I suppose to get the right setting for the magic sonic, but I’m still puzzled by his assertion to Amy about his two selves: “We had to know if we were truly the same. It was important, vital we learn about the Flesh, and we could only do that through your eyes.” I really don’t have any clue what he means by that.
At long last, Gary, we are coming to at least a partial resolution to this onerous arc.

Monday, April 20, 2015

The Rebel Flesh

Dear Gary—
Here’s the thing—there is absolutely no reason for Rory and Amy to be tagging along after the Doctor anymore. What inspires this thought? The sight of this young, newlywed couple playing a lackluster game of darts while the old man fiddles with gadgets and some blaring music echoes off the TARDIS’ walls. By all rights they should be enjoying a lively round in a neighborhood pub, surrounded by friends while downing a pint of ale after having cheered on their favorite team on the telly.
Initially Amy was running away from life when she hitched a ride with the Doctor. It was the night before her wedding and she was scared of the future. But she is married now. Why is she still running? I can see why Rory is there—he’s tagging along after his wife, although at some point he should start taking his doubts as to her fidelity seriously and put his foot down. It is selfish of the Doctor to keep this young couple from starting their life together, establishing roots, planning a family, setting up house and home.
Why would they give it up, you ask—the exciting life in the TARDIS, visiting alien worlds, embarking on thrilling adventures? Well, from what I can see, excitement in the TARDIS consists of darts and bunk beds. Then they spend the majority of their time on Earth, so you can throw the alien worlds argument out the door. And those thrilling adventures are more psychological torment than anything of late, not to mention the continual life and death rollercoaster Rory is on. I just do not see that they are having any fun.
Oh, well there is that pesky pregnancy test that can’t make up its mind, so I guess the Doctor needs to keep Amy around to resolve that hanging thread. Let’s get on with it already.
The Rebel Flesh is getting on with it already, in its long and drawn out way. Another story in service to the arc.
The TARDIS makes a seemingly random landing at a converted monastery on (where else?) Earth, except it is evident from the start that this was intentional by the Doctor. He has a reason for being there, and it can be one of two things. Either the acid that is being mined there or, more obviously, the Flesh that is used in the mining operation.
It is, of course, the Flesh. The acid is incidental—it is only there to provide an excuse for the Flesh. It is a rather flimsy excuse, but it will do. Realistically, any major corporation with its eye on profit would not waste money on what I can only imagine is an expensive technology when I am sure there are a host of less costly methods for extracting the acid without incident. For one thing, they could train their staff better, or get a better quality, more sure-footed staff. Perhaps knowing that it is a Ganger on the job makes them less safety conscious which leads to more accidents. If they knew it was their life on the line these workers might not be so careless. However, the least expensive and simplest way to cut back on deaths would be to invest in some lids for the vats of acid that the technicians have to stand precariously over. Or how about move the equipment they have to work on to areas that are not so inconvenient to access?
At this point I am wondering why the Doctor didn’t go to a Flesh factory if that is his real interest.
But he didn’t. He came to an acid factory with a vat of Flesh on hand that also happens to be under a solar storm warning. The story that emerges from this arc saddled device is a decent enough if not spectacular base under siege scenario.
The Rebel Flesh, as the first in a two parter, sets up the characters and their Ganger counterparts for us. It is a standard issue cast, some more fully fleshed out than others if you’ll pardon the expression. Jennifer is the standout, both in her human and Ganger form, and the relationship she establishes with Rory in the brief span of time is believable. It’s nice to see Rory chase after someone other than Amy, and for Amy to do a bit of chasing after Rory for a change. The scene of Ganger Jennifer recounting her childhood memories and asserting herself as an individual is most effective. “I am not a factory part,” she declares in defiance, thus stating the most compelling theme of the story. Unfortunately it gets lost along the way.
“Us and them” is the central conflict that the show is setting up, and it doesn’t take the time to explore the moral and psychological aspects in detail. It gives us brief and powerful scenes as related above, but then takes action genre shortcuts to move the plot along. Thus we have Cleaves, for no apparent reason, arming herself with a zapper of some sort and going on a murderous rampage.
“They’re monsters; mistakes; they have to be destroyed.” This is not a sane and rational leader talking. It is all the more puzzling because up to that point I thought the show was presenting Cleaves as a hard-nosed but respected manager of people, not an unstable personality. Ganger Cleaves is more intriguing as she comments on her alter ego: “Oh great. You see, that is just so typically me.” Except that it doesn’t seem typical at all. It would make more sense if Jennifer went berserk to mirror her Ganger.
Speaking of which, the CGI Ganger Jen with her rubber arms and neck abilities is very cheesy and unnecessary.
 The show needs the ‘us vs. them’ mentality to make the drama work, though, and so it resorts to stereotypical thriller behavior. Because the Doctor is right, there really is no reason for anyone to be terrified of the Gangers going on a “walkabout.” Cause for concern perhaps, but no need to fly off the handle just yet. Especially since the Doctor has been able to reason with the Gangers and is bringing them all together to work things out. Thus the need for Cleaves to go off her rocker and force them into war.
The other members rounding out our cast aren’t particularly memorable. Dicken and Buzzer are interchangeable except that Dicken has a cold and Buzzer is inordinately proud of his rudimentary card house making abilities. Jimmy is the one with a son.
It is a decent enough adventure, but it doesn’t end. This was just the beginning, and as the credits roll I’m thinking, do we really need another hour of them running around in dark corridors?
However, the cliffhanger is outstanding as Ganger Doctor emerges:
“It’s frightening, unexpected, frankly a total, utter splattering mess on the carpet, but I am certain, one hundred percent certain, that we can work this out. Trust me. I’m the Doctor.”
It is a bold statement he makes, Gary; one that, frankly, he won’t be able to live up to. But it is a stunning moment to leave the episode on.

Friday, April 17, 2015

The Doctor's Wife

Dear Gary—
Amy: “How can you leave the universe?”
Doctor: “With enormous difficulty.”
Two things The Doctor’s Wife has going for it from the start: a companionable TARDIS opening and an adventure that doesn’t take place on Earth for a change. I’m liking it. When all is said and done, The Doctor’s Wife is one of the best of the era. It is an intelligent and witty script that doesn’t cheat or manipulate and doesn’t trip over its self-reverential cleverness, a rarity of late. It is pure and simple Doctor Who.
In the nostalgic spirit of the episode, I have to say that it reminds me of two Classic Who serials. The First is The Caves of Androzani. Both Caves and Wife are excellent scripts executed brilliantly by a stellar cast; but I am kept from appreciating either to the degree they deserve by the larger picture of the surrounding seasons. Each is an oasis, but an oasis I can’t fully enjoy. For Caves I have a hard time warming to the Fifth Doctor and Peri, and I am therefore not fully invested in the action. For Wife I have a hard time divorcing it from the dark and dreary path of the season’s arc, even though there are no eye patch ladies and no vacillating pregnancy tests to remind me.
The second Classic serial I am reminded of is Ghost Light. This is partially as a result of the aforementioned arc distraction. Due to my general dislike of the direction the series was taking, the first time I viewed The Doctor’s Wife I did not devote my full attention and was therefore lost for most of it. It seemed a nightmare world inhabited by beings as mad as those occupying Gabriel Chase and making about as much sense. Subsequent viewings have cleared up the plot for me (which cannot be said of Ghost Light), but I can still see similarities between Control and Idris, much to my amusement.
I can now watch this episode as a standalone and can enjoy it as the fine story it is.
The unexpected knock on the TARDIS door in mid flight and the Doctor’s subsequent delight at getting mail set the episode up beautifully. I have never been a fan of the Time Lords from the Classic series, and the guilt laden angst of the Doctor concerning their fate has cast a pall over their memory in New Who. However the Doctor’s joyous reminiscence about his friends of old restores some of the luster to these legendary figures.  Furthermore, the onerous burden the Doctor has felt of late is simplified into a hopeful desire for forgiveness, thus making his discovery of the cupboard full of carelessly discarded Time Lord message boxes all that more tragic. This skillful blending of old and new Who into something of its own is perfect. “I’m a madman with a box, without a box,” is just another example of how the script takes echoes of the past and puts a refreshing twist on them.  I only wish that the series would take a lesson from its example.
Then we get into the heart of the plot. The idea of giving voice and personality to the TARDIS is original and long overdue, and the playfully loving relationship between Suranne Jones as Idris/TARDIS and Matt Smith as the Doctor is exactly what you would expect from this twosome who have been together for seven hundred years. From the Doctor referring to Idris/TARDIS as Sexy to Idris/TARDIS berating the Doctor for pushing not pulling the TARDIS’ doors to both claiming to have ‘stolen’ the other, the pair comfortably fit into their roles as bickering spouses devoted to one another.
The notion that an entity has been luring unsuspecting Time Lords to its “scrap yard at the end of the universe” in order to feed on TARDIS energy and use Time Lord body parts to make patchwork repairs to Uncle and Auntie (shades of The Brain of Morbius) is also intriguing. When the sentient asteroid House learns that there are no more Time Lords or TARDIS’ to salvage, he possesses the Doctor’s soulless TARDIS and takes off with Amy and Rory on board.
House’s tormenting of Amy and Rory is also compelling, although I can do without the once-more- into-the-Rory-is-dead-no-he-isn’t breach. However, it is an interesting twist on this Eleventh Doctor trope to have Amy internalizing this fear. House is playing with their senses and on their phobias. Amy can be thoughtlessly cruel towards her husband at times while he loyally trots along after her. House picks up on this dynamic and manifests it in a most un-Rory-like Rory turning on his wife in a dramatically startling way.
Real Rory is ever steadfast, however, and he and Amy eventually make it to the fabulously archived Tenth Doctor control room with the help of Idris/TARDIS. Idris/TARDIS and the Doctor also arrive in their makeshift TARDIS and things end for House rather callously. (“Finish him off, girl.”) The ending in store for the Doctor and Idris/TARDIS, though, is bittersweet.
Idris/TARDIS:  “Alive. I’m alive.”
Doctor: “Alive isn’t sad.”
Idris/TARDIS: “It’s sad when it’s over. I’ll always be here, but this is when we talked.”
And then we have goodbyes and hellos mixed up in whimsical fashion.
Idris/TARDIS: “There’s something I didn’t get to say to you.”
Doctor: “Goodbye?”
Idris/TARDIS: “No, I just wanted to say hello. Hello, Doctor. It’s so very, very nice to meet you.”
The Ood is a bit superfluous, but overall this is one of the best of New Who. I don’t even mind the cryptic, “the only water in the forest is the river.” I know it is tying in the tedious arc of the season, but like most of the script, it does it in a bright and novel way that piques the interest.
Alas, my sojourn in this oasis is over, Gary . . .

Friday, April 10, 2015

The Curse of the Black Spot

Dear Gary—
As promised, the Doctor and gang put the little girl and all the unresolved issues of the season’s arc on hold and go off on an adventure. There is a random lady with an eye patch sighting and an indeterminate pregnancy test just to keep the audience aware of the arc, but for the most part The Curse of the Black Spot is one of those stand alone episodes stuck into the season as filler.
“Yo ho ho. Or does nobody actually say that?”
The Doctor and company are just playing; biding time; off on a lark. It’s obvious that is the only reason they have chosen this particular vessel to visit. They can’t even cover their lie very well. “Our sensors picked you up,” the Doctor explains, only to realize that ‘sensors’ is a “problem word.” He can’t get away with technical mumbo jumbo with this crew so he offers up, “My ship automatically, er, noticed-ish that your ship was having some bother.” He is stumbling around for some semblance of a reason for their stowaway status, but neither Captain Avery nor I are buying it. What possible reading could the TARDIS have picked up to indicate the ship is in trouble? His sonic screwdriver doesn’t do wood (except it does do a decent job on a wooden water barrel on deck but I’ll overlook that); I’m sure the TARDIS doesn’t do sailing ships. Even if it did, what would it indicate as ‘some bother?’ That there is no wind and so the ship is stalled in the water? That there is only a skeleton crew aboard? Why would either show up on the TARDIS’ radar? We later learn that there is a distress signal coming from the alien spaceship parked in the same spot but on a different plane, so why didn’t the TARDIS take them there? Why land on an earthly sailing ship that couldn’t possibly be emitting the distress signal?
It’s simple really. The Doctor and Amy and Rory have decided they want to play pirate. This is just an excuse for Amy to dress like a pirate and the Doctor to walk a plank and Rory to . . . well for Rory just to be Rory, which is great; Rory is the saving grace of Who in this stretch.
The Doctor takes his moment on the plank as an opportunity to try out his stand up routine. And Amy has no fear that the Doctor is in any danger; she takes the time to choose a fetching outfit to wear before appearing on deck brandishing a cutlass. What fun they are having with this sanitized gang of brigands.
(Since the Doctor is playing comedian, I’ll offer up one of Dad’s jokes that is apropos of the serial. A little boy dressed up as a pirate for Halloween and went trick-or-treating. At the first door he came to the woman of the house exclaimed, “Oh, how adorable. But where are your buccaneers?” To which the little boy replied in disgust, “Under my buckin’ hat.”)
As my mom would say, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
Amy makes the tiniest cut on one of the cowering pirates and a black spot appears on his palm—the cursed black spot. Rory gets a black spot of his own as he tries to come to Amy’s defense. This draws out the green Siren. “One touch of her hand and you’re a dead man.” As proof, the injured pirate disintegrates as he reaches out to the songstress.
What follows is a routine romp. There are some funny bits as the Doctor and Captain Avery compete over who has the bigger ship and Amy tries to keep Rory from being sirened to death. There is another stowaway found (the Captain’s sick son) and there is even an attempt at mutiny (although I don’t know what the rebellious duo is thinking they can accomplish on a stalled boat with no wind and no crew to speak of while being menaced by “a green singing shark in an evening gown,” but what the heck, yo ho ho and all that).
There’s lots of running around below deck while the Doctor tries to figure out what exactly is going on and as he revises his theories multiple times. It’s terribly nice of the singing siren to refrain from popping through any one of the number of reflective surfaces available to her (the brass buttons on Amy’s coat, the cutlass blade, or the shards of glass scattered about to name a few) until such time as the Doctor gets things sorted out in his mind and the plot requires her presence.
The Doctor finally decides to take a chance on his latest hypothesis and he, Avery, and Amy take a huge leap of faith, cutting their fingers to attract the green menace. The trio is transported aboard an alien craft in a parallel plane. At last the Doctor realizes that their ghostly pursuer is actually a medic. However, I have to ask, what kind of doctor is this, holographic or not, who doesn’t know how to heal? She has the knowledge and technology to keep people alive but not to cure them? This isn’t a sick bay so much as a storage facility.
Now we get into the broken record of a Rory is dead/no he’s not plot. Rory is on the point of drowning. The Siren has saved him and hooked him up to life support. It is up to Amy to restore life to him. Why Amy? Because, Rory explains to her, “I know you’ll never give up.” Guess what, Rory? She gives up. After barely a minute of trying she gives up. It is only due to the indestructibleness of Rory and his uncanny ability of springing back to life that he survives.
Let’s not forget Captain Avery, his dying son, and his hijacked crew. There’s a warm and fuzzy ending for you. Father and son reunited, off to explore the universe together in the short time the lad has left. Except the reality is that the Doctor hands a death sentence to the kid and lets loose a pack of ruthless bandits on an unsuspecting universe.
Typhoid fever is treatable. All the Doctor has to do is take the young boy to a modern hospital. Or check the sick bay of the ship they are on—I’m sure there are some antibiotics available, and if not there surely he has some in the TARDIS. The holographic doctor is useless, but Rory is a nurse. There is no reason for Avery’s son to die. But the Doctor lately has no real interest in people other than the momentary thrill they provide him with. He’s done with this lot and impatient to get off on his next adventure; saving the boy would take too much time and trouble.
As for the pirates; nobody bothers to ask them if they want to fly off into the unknown, but then why wouldn’t they? Their treasure is lost but they now have access to a ship that can take them through the stars to treasures untold. They stand staring out into those wide open spaces before them with the gold lust sparkling in their eyes. So many planets to plunder.
The Curse of the Black Spot is an OK adventure with the requisite humor and action, but the Doctor fails on so many levels, I never believe anyone is in any real danger—not even (and especially not) Rory who can survive anything these days—and the human drama is too superficial and generic.
Yo ho ho, Gary . . .

Friday, April 3, 2015

Day of the Moon

Dear Gary—
Canton: “What the hell’s going on?”
This is why I am beginning to hate New Who.
Amy is running wildly towards a cliff edge. The cliffhanger from the previous serial is forgotten for this new one I guess. The show doesn’t even care enough about that little girl to resolve her shooting. It is three months later and we have absolutely no idea what is going on. Canton lays out a body bag and shoots Amy while chaotic flashbacks from the warehouse flit across the screen. The Doctor is held prisoner in Area 51 and Rory and River are each chased and killed by Canton.
Not to worry, though, because we know they are not really dead (just as we know future Doctor is not really dead). Amy and Rory pop up out of their body bags; apparently Canton used blanks on them. As for River, she does her patented fall backwards from a great height and hope that the Doctor gets the script in time for the TARDIS to catch her in mid flight.
It is all for effect. It is all for the drama and the tension and the action; who cares how this alliance came about or when or why or where they hatched this elaborate scheme. Who cares how the little girl survived the bullet—just brush it aside with a passing “I’m glad I missed” line half way through the episode. It wasn’t a real cliffhanger to begin with.
The body art encapsulates this. It makes for some stunning and eerie visuals, but it has little practicality. At least not in the artistic way they realize it. If they are serious about making marks on themselves as a warning that Silents are present they would choose areas of the body that are immediately visible, not their faces. (Parenthetically, how do they even remember that they have a marking system going on their faces, and then how do they know where exactly on the face to place the next one? Do they carry mirrors with them to get the precise layout? More likely someone else puts the marks on their faces for them. Now I doubt that any Silent would do this. No, the someone who is marking their faces is employed by the Doctor Who make-up department; probably the same someone who did a much more effective job on Toby’s face in The Impossible Planet.) They do mark up their arms and hands, but they don’t use all available space; there is no reason for them to move on to the face other than the wow factor for the audience. It is this growing and deliberate self-awareness of Doctor Who that is slowing eroding the integrity of the show.
The markings also are a highly inaccurate accounting system. Amy sees a Silent and makes a mark. Amy turns away and forgets she saw that Silent. Amy turns back around and makes another mark. How many Silents did Amy see? Multiply that out by, oh let’s be conservative and say one hundred per month, times three months, times three participants (Amy, Rory, River) and now let’s try to predict how many Silents are in the world.
So what have Amy, Rory, and River been doing for three months? Running around the planet making markings on their skin. I hope they’ve been writing this all down someplace that won’t wash away when they shower as a back-up since they don’t yet have the handy recording devices implanted in their hands. The Doctor doesn’t inject them until after their whirlwind tour. It seems like this three months was a dangerous waste of time. They really don’t come back with much information other than that the Silents seem to be everywhere. How does that help them exactly? They still have no clue who these Silents are, where they came from, or what they are up to.
“You were invaded a long time ago. America is occupied,” River says. The Doctor reiterates: “We are not fighting an alien invasion, we’re leading a revolution.”
Why? The Doctor has spent his three months growing a beard. He hasn’t tried communicating with this occupying force. He doesn’t know if they are hostile. If they have been present since the beginning of time, what’s the harm in allowing them to remain? How does he know they are up to no good? How does he know that the 1969 moon shot is their ultimate goal? He has some rather vague message to look up Canton in 1969 (which he is suspicious of from the start and only takes Amy at her fish fingers and custard word) and he leaps to the conclusion that these ever present Silents are building up to some dire threat to humanity after millennia of patience.
The Doctor decides that after all this time the Silents really only wanted to guide the human race towards flying to the moon so that they, the Silents, could utilize a space suit to put a little girl into. The Doctor terms them “super parasites” who utilize the technology of other races. The Silents want a space suit, so they wait around for millions of years implanting post-hypnotic suggestions in people’s minds just so they can get their hands on a NASA suit. But it is not an ordinary spacesuit. It is full of alien technology. Where did the Silents get this advanced technology from? Not from NASA. All they wanted from Earth was the suit; they provided the technology that they obtained elsewhere? They waited around for millions of years on Earth with this technology just to get their hands on a space suit to chuck a little girl into? I’m missing something here.
The Doctor is making some huge assumptions.
Most infuriating is the suggestion that yet again all of the genius and advancement and success of the human race is due to some alien intervention.
Move over Azal, Fendahl, and Scaroth. The Silence has been “standing in the shadows of human history since the very beginning.” All of these aliens working to advance human technology for their own ends really should get together. You’d think with four such powerful aliens on the job the human race would be super beings by this point. Except human beings are apparently such pathetic beings that we need four such powerful aliens to aid us in our progress.
Let’s just look at The Silence. If Silents have been lurking in the shadows, whispering in ears, planting inspiration “since the wheel and the fire,” all working towards NASA it would seem, why wouldn’t they stamp out every Luddite type movement in history? And the Dark Ages? Why did The Silence allow that? Are we to view such moments as a victory for free will? I would also think Silents would have been furiously whispering in the ears of Sir Charles Grover, Mike Yates, and their co-conspirators from Invasion of the Dinosaurs trying to influence them against their plan to return the Earth to a primitive state. All that hard work of The Silence would be wiped out. How did they let that crazy plan go unnoticed?
 And OK, Silents are all around but we forget we have seen them—out of sight, out of mind. But surely if they are present in great numbers there would have been countless times when more than one person had a clear view to warn others or film or write about while maintaining a sight line. Surely Amy is not the first person to snap a picture of one on her phone. There would be multiple depictions and recordings throughout history. (There’s probably a painting of a Silent by Vincent kicking about some dusty attic.) Not to mention, I am sure, a good number of Silent corpses killed by frightened humans. People might forget they killed something, but the bodies would still be there for one and all to stumble over time and time again.
The notion that these creatures have been on Earth since the beginning and have never been outed is beyond ridiculous. It is stupid.
If, however, they have managed to co-exist without notice, then the Doctor’s plan would not work. The skin markings, the recordings, the pictures—none of it would withstand the memory wipe. When they see a marking, how do they remember what it signifies? When their hand flashes, how do they know what it means? When they hear a recording or see a picture, how do they remember it when the recording is over or the picture is out of sight? Is it only the image they forget, but they can remember the concept and the discussing and planning and scheming? I’m sorry, if it is that easy I cannot believe, no matter how super hero our heroes are, that they can achieve what billions of humans living day to day through the millennia with the Silents could not. Not even the clubs and organizations and societies and authorities dedicated to proving that there are aliens amongst us. The skin markings and recordings and pictures are too simple. If they work, the Silents would have been exposed long before now.
But then, Doctor Who continues to regard Mankind as the biggest idiots in the universe and this only drives home that point.
The only other possibilities are that The Silence has decided it is time to make their presence known or that there is one Silent who is a traitor. Or how about this? The Doctor is wrong about all of his conclusions regarding these creatures.
“As long as there’s been something in the corner of your eye, or creaking in your house, or breathing under your bed, or voices through a wall.” Doctor Who has sunk to the levels of B horror flicks, and not the fun kind.
Granted, Amy and Canton in the mysterious abandoned orphanage is suitably atmospheric. The graffiti, the flickering lights, the obviously insane caretaker—all set the tone for this house of horrors. The Silent bats hanging from the ceiling are shocking, as is the sight of Amy’s marked face reflected in the window. It is all to great effect, but that is all it is.
A strange woman with an eye patch peering through a panel that disappears; a photograph of Amy with a child she doesn’t recognize; a pregnancy scan that can’t make up its mind; a little girl who appears to regenerate like a Time Lord. These are all unresolved questions in the script designed to get the fan forums in a frenzy.
Yippee.
Now let’s get to the Doctor’s final solution. Well, it’s not a final solution really because it doesn’t resolve the bulk of the questions, but it does hand a neat victory to the Doctor in this skirmish of an episode. And it is brilliant. Fight fire with fire; fight post-hypnotic suggestion with post-hypnotic suggestion. And now I know why the author (not the Silence) chose 1969 as the scene for this showdown. It is oh so very effective. “One giant leap for mankind.” Brilliant.
Of course it relies heavily on luck. “You should kill us all on sight.” That is one Silent who read his script. Good thing the Doctor and Canton read it too or they never would have known to coordinate this elaborate plan.
“You just raised an army against yourself,” the Doctor crows, “and now, for a thousand generations, you’re going to be ordering them to destroy you every day.”
With that the Doctor has exposed himself as the Monster he has become. At this point the show could do one of its famous montages of friends and enemies accusing the Doctor. The Sixth Doctor on trial. Davros taunting the Tenth. But those were nothing. Those were defensible. Then we get into the Eleventh. Let’s see Rory again stating, “It’s not that you make people take risks; it’s that you make them want to impress you.” And now let’s culminate with the Eleventh Doctor turning the human race into executioners.
But it’s OK, you say. They won’t remember they have been killing sentient beings their whole life. It’s the Bloody Liz Ten defense.
Genocide. The ultimate solution.
Just because the Silents have been nudging humanity ever so slowly forward in order to build up the space program so that they could get their hands on a space suit to put a little girl into. Seems a fair punishment.
River as she murders a room full of Silents: “My old fellow didn’t see that, did he? He gets ever so cross.”
Don’t worry, River. The Doctor’s pacifism is only a pose. He pulls it out when he wants to snub authority figures or when he wants to appear noble. He has no problem when his women wield a weapon, at least not the women he really, really cares about (sorry Martha).
Apparently River is one of those women he really, really cares about; or will really, really care about one day. Wibbly wobbly; timey wimey.
And apparently Rory is still uncertain if Amy really, really cares about him. Poor Rory. He deserves better.
When all is said and done: “So, this little girl. It’s all about her. Who was she? Or we could just go off and have some adventures.”
That is Doctor Who laying it out for us, the pattern of the season. It’s all about the little girl, but we’re going to make you wait for it. You’ll have to sit through some adventures first before we get back to her.
Oh Gary . . .